Gree City
Gree City was an British-Canadian animated television series that was, created and produced at History Animation and Cinar by animator Greg Garfield. It first premiered on MTV on April 25, 1985, with it's first episode, Gree's Nightmares, which led to a series of half-hour episodes. The series aired on History Channel and its affiliates worldwide, except in Canada where it has aired on English and France HGTV networks due to Canadian television ownership regulations with a total of 3 seasons. The haters of this show say it is a rip-off of both Geo's World and Greeny Phatom. Some of the haters are Greeny Phatom fans. History Gree City was conceived in the lobby of Terry Ward's office by Greg Garfield. He was asked to do a series of animated shorts, and decided to do his Gree Comic series; but since he realized that animating Gree Comic would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's work, he chose another approach and formulated his version of a dysfunctional family. He named the characters after his own family, and substituted Geo Guy for his own name; as it was an anagram of 'keo'. Gree City first appeared to the world on May 2, 1977 by Universal Press Syndicate. Gree submitted drawn sketches of Gree Guy and his friends to the animators, assuming they would clean them up in production. However, the animators just re-traced over his drawings; that is why Gree City appear a little poorly drawn in the comics. 20th Century Fox then picked up the rights, and in 1982, a team of production companies adapted Gree City into a 1-hour primetime series, for CBS. It was initially nervous to air Gree City; as there hasn't been a cartoon in primetime since Geo's World and that they were unsure if they could keep the audience's attention for the duration of the episode. They proposed doing three seven-minute shorts and four specials until the audience adjusted, but the producers gambled for thirteen half-hour episodes for the series. Gree City was originally to premiere in the fall of 1983; with "Gree VS. Geo's World," but when the episode came back from animation, it had real major, major problems with it. Terry Ward was extremely dissatisfied with the product and called for many parts of the episode to be redone. The producers then decided to just go ahead and air "Gree's Nightmares," on May 1, 1984. The show then flopped during the 1990-1991 TV season, then was canceled several years later in 1995, due to higher ratings from Geo's World and Greeny Phatom, and reviews saying "It was started to become a huge rip-off of Greeny Phatom and Geo's World." Characters * Gree Guy * Dr. S * Gree Girl * Green Bob * Zombie * Dr. Beanson (The one in Gree City, not Greeny Phatom) Reception The show actually received negative reviews during the 1995-1996 TV season. The show has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 47% (rotten), and an IMDB rating of 4.7. The 1995-1996 TV season also got the show's Nielsen ratings to drop, then in 1996-1997, dropped even more, causing the 2nd season to have a Nielsen rating of 12. Gree City The Movie was a flop, earning only of it's planned money. IGN rated both the show and movie a 39.2 out of 100, saying that "It was starting to be a ripoff of the top 2 Greenytoons, Geo's World and Greeny Phatom." The A.V Club gave the show overall an D, stating that "after taking elements from Geo's World and Greeny Phatom, Gree City is not a good show to watch since the 1996-1997 season." Gree City The Movie fared worse, with a grade of "F". Criticism Gree City is criticized for ripping off the more successful Geo's World and Greeny Phatom, being drawn in not so good quality, and stealing more ratings from Geo's World. Gree City also tried to cancel Geo's World ten times in a row.